The city administration yesterday disputed the findings of a June 20 memo
that suggested the city is getting a bad deal from its parking lease
agreement with the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, but controversy
remains about why the city administration withheld the memo from City Council and the
Port Authority for three-plus weeks. Opponents of the parking plan are
now attempting to use the memo to convince the Port Authority to reject
the lease with Xerox, but the Port Authority insists that the memo is
laced with inaccuracies and technical errors. The city is pursuing the
lease to obtain a $92 million lump sum and at least $3 million in annual
payments, according to city estimates. The money will be used to pay
for future budget gaps and development projects, including the I-71/MLK
Interchange.

The Cincinnati streetcar got an opening date yesterday: Sept. 15, 2016.
The grand opening comes after years of political controversy, pulled
funding and two referendum efforts nearly killed the project. Ever
since it was first proposed, the streetcar project has been engulfed in
misrepresentations, which CityBeat covered here.

A federal judge made permanent his earlier decision that Ohio must count provisional ballots
if they’re submitted in the right polling place but wrong precinct. The
ruling is being taken as a victory by voting-rights advocates.

Cincinnati is negotiating to claw back
its incentive with Kendle International Inc., which agreed in 2008 to
keep its headquarters and create jobs at the city’s Carew Tower. The
agreement gave Kendle $200,000 over 10 years on the
condition it steadily grew jobs. The failure may add further doubt to
the value of job deals, which were criticized earlier in the year by a
report CityBeat covered here.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Christ
Hospital and Bethesda North Hospital are among the best hospitals in the
nation, according to U.S. News’s “Best Hospitals” feature.

Here are some of the odd things that made it into the two-year state budget.

Gov. John Kasich signed a Columbus school plan that will allow levy money to be shared with charter schools that partner with the Columbus school district.

The Senate is the best place in the country to eat hot dogs, according to Food & Wine.

The Hamilton County Jail charges its inmates a fee for
incarceration, and a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union
of Ohio (ACLU) suggests the practice harms low-income inmates and raises little money for the county. CityBeat
got an exclusive early look at the report, which scrutinized three
counties for their pay-to-stay policies. Among the three samples,
Hamilton County had the second lowest fees and did the second
least harm to low-income people, according to the report. Although the
ACLU was hopeful the report and the election of a new sheriff would
inspire some change, Hamilton County officials told CityBeat that no changes are planned.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck down the federal ban on same-sex marriage, and some local and state leaders had a few things to say about it.
The reactions seem to vary depending on a partisan basis, with
Republicans in opposition and Democrats in favor. Rest assured: Here at CityBeat, we favor giving equal rights to people no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity.

City Council yesterday approved funding and accountability measures for the Cincinnati streetcar project
and funding for development at Fourth and Race streets, which will
include a downtown grocery store. The streetcar measures close the
project’s $17.4 million budget gap by issuing more debt and pulling
funding from various capital projects, including infrastructure
improvements around the Horseshoe Casino. The accountability measures,
which were initially introduced by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, require
the city manager to update City Council with a timeline of key
milestones, performance measures, an operating plan, staffing
assessments and monthly progress reports.

It’s local election season. In the next five months, City Council will meet only seven times, down from the typical 14.

Odis Jones is leaving his post as Cincinnati’s director of economic development
to become CEO of the Detroit Public Lighting Authority, a city-run utility
operated by an independent board. Jones was known at City Council
meetings for making passionate pitches for various economic development
projects, including the most recent plans for Fourth and Race streets.
He told Business Courier he wants to go to Detroit to play a role in the revitalization
of his hometown: “My mother always said, 'If you see a good fight, get
in it.' I'm in it.”

The Ohio House voted to ban red-light cameras
despite arguments that the cameras have reduced
traffic accidents and saved lives. An Ohio Senate vote is expected in
the fall.

Funding for development at Fourth, Race streets also gets approval

City Council today approved funding and accountability measures for the Cincinnati streetcar project, allowing the project to move forward.

On Monday, the Budget and Finance Committee approved the measures, which CityBeat covered in further detail here. The funding ordinance closes the streetcar project's $17.4 million budget gap by issuing more debt and pulling funding from various capital projects, including infrastructure improvements around the Horseshoe Casino.

The accountability motion will require the city manager to update City Council with a timeline of key milestones, performance measures, an operating plan, staffing assessments and monthly progress reports.

Council members Roxanne Qualls, Laure Quinlivan, Chris
Seelbach, Yvette Simpson and Wendell Young voted for the measures.
Council members P.G. Sittenfeld, Chris Smitherman and Charlie Winburn
voted against both. Councilwoman Pam Thomas voted against the funding
ordinance, but she voted for the accountability motion.

City Council also unanimously approved funding for a development project on Fourth and Race streets, which includes a downtown grocery store, luxury apartment tower and parking garage to replace Pogue's Garage. CityBeat covered that project in further detail here.

The streetcar project is moving forward
following yesterday’s votes from City Council’s Budget and Finance
Committee, which approved increased capital funding and accountability
measures that will keep the public updated on the project’s progress.
The increased funding fixes the project’s $17.4 million budget gap by
issuing more debt and pulling funding from various capital projects,
including infrastructure improvements around the Horseshoe Casino. The
accountability measures will require the city administration to report
to City Council on the streetcar's progress with a timeline of key
milestones, performance measures, an operating plan, staffing
assessments and monthly progress reports.

At the same committee meeting, council members failed to carry out a repeal of “local hire” and “local preference” laws,
which was part of an earlier announced compromise
between the city and county that would allow work on sewer projects to
continue. At this point, it’s unclear whether the Hamilton County Board of
Commissioners will repeal the funding hold on sewer projects. The
commissioners passed the hold after City Council modified its
“responsible bidder” law in May. The city says the laws encourage local
job creation and training, but the county claims the rules favor unions
and impose extra costs on Metropolitan Sewer District projects.

Republican Gov. John Kasich’s approval ratings hit an all-time high of 54 percent
in a new Quinnipiac University poll, helping him hold a 14-point lead
against likely Democratic challenger Ed FitzGerald. “All in all, at this
stage, Kasich has done a pretty good job appealing to voters across the
state,” said Quinnipiac's Peter Brown. “FitzGerald remains pretty much
an unknown to most Ohioans, with only one in four voters knowing enough
about him to have formed an opinion. The election is a long way away,
but the next stage will be the race to define FitzGerald, positively by
the candidate himself and negatively by the Kasich folks.”

The Cincinnati office for the Internal Revenue Service also targeted liberal groups,
particularly those who used the terms “progressive” and “occupy.” The
IRS has been under scrutiny in the past few months for targeting
conservative groups by honing in on terms such as “tea party” and
“9/12.”

Ohio gave tax incentives
to four more Cincinnati-area businesses. Overall, 15 projects received
the breaks to supposedly spur $379 million in investment across Ohio.

The federal government is committing another $5 million to Cincinnati’s streetcar project,
but the city must first close the budget gap that has recently put the
project in danger. The U.S. Department of Transportation is also asking
the city to restore certain aspects of the project, including a
passenger information system and a screen or wall that would block power
substations from public view. City Council’s Budget and Finance
Committee is expected to vote on the project’s $17.4 million budget gap
today. The latest proposed fixes from the city manager would pull funding from multiple capital projects, including improvements around the Horseshoe Casino, and issue more debt.

Cincinnati and Hamilton County announced a compromise
Friday that will end the county's funding hold on sewer projects. As a
result, the city will be required to rework its “responsible bidder”
ordinance and repeal the “local hire” and “local preference” laws that
incited county commissioners into passing the funding hold in the first
place. The city says its responsible bidder law creates local jobs and
encourages job training, but the county argues that law’s rules favor
unions and push up costs on Metropolitan Sewer District projects. CityBeat covered the city-county conflict in further detail here.

Ohio is No. 3 in the nation for “megadeals”
— massive government subsidies to corporations that are meant to
encourage in-state job creation — but a new report found many of the
deals rarely produce the kind of jobs initially touted by public
officials. For Cincinnati, the risks of megadeals are nothing new: In
2011, the city’s $196.4 million megadeal with Convergys collapsed when the company failed to keep downtown employment at or above
1,450, and the company agreed to pay a $14 million reimbursement to the city.

The prison company that owns and operates a northeastern Ohio prison lost four contracts around the nation in June, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In May, CityBeat released an in-depth report
looking at the Corrections Corporation of America’s handling of the
Lake Erie Correctional Institution, finding evidence of rising violence
and unsanitary conditions.

President Barack Obama will make a speech
tomorrow unveiling sweeping plans for climate change. The president is
expected to impose a series of regulations, particularly on power
plants, with executive powers, which means the plans won’t require
congressional action.

Council to rework "responsible bidder" ordinance

Cincinnati and Hamilton County today announced a compromise that will end the county's funding hold on sewer projects, allowing the projects to move forward. As a condition, the city will have to rework and repeal the controversial laws that incited county commissioners into approving the hold in the first place.

As part of the deal, Commissioner Chris Monzel will ask the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners to immediately repeal a hold on Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) projects.

On the city's side, Councilman Chris Seelbach will ask City Council to immediately repeal so-called "local hire" and "local preference" rules, which require a certain percentage of contractors' workforce be local residents.

The city, county and their partners will then work on changing the city's responsible bidder ordinance before new rules are officially implemented on Aug. 1.

In May, City Council modified the responsible bidder ordinance originally passed in June 2012. The changes were supposed to trigger in August, but the compromise may alter those changes altogether.

Under the current language, the ordinance forces MSD contractors to establish specifically accredited apprenticeship programs and put money — based on labor costs — toward a pre-apprenticeship fund.

The city argued the programs will help create local jobs and train local workers, but the county criticized the rules for supposedly favoring unions and imposing extra costs on MSD projects.

Meanwhile, MSD is facing pressure from the federal government to comply with a mandate to retrofit and replace Cincinnati's sewers. MSD estimates the project will cost $3.2 billion over 15 to 20 years, making it one of the largest infrastructure projects in Cincinnati's history.

But the project was effectively halted by the county commissioners' funding hold, which forced the city and county to hastily work out a compromise.

Mayor, City Council could make changes

The city signed an agreement Monday to lease its parking
meters, lots and garages to the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority, but the mayor and City Council may make changes to the plan before it’s implemented.

The city tweeted the news of the signing to several reporters today with a caveat: “Changes to hours etc. can still be made.”

The caveat comes after a majority of City Council asked
City Manager Milton Dohoney to give council more time to make changes to
the parking plan. Council approved the parking plan in March, but that
was in the middle of a tenuous budget process that has since finished
with the passing of a balanced budget.

Now, a majority of City Council is pushing to rework the
deal. Democrats Chris Seelbach, P.G. Sittenfeld, Pam Thomas and Laure
Quinlivan, Republican Charlie Winburn and Independent Chris Smitherman
support reworking or repealing the parking plan.

In particular, Seelbach and Quinlivan have suggested
reducing or eliminating the expansion of parking meter operation hours.
The original plan
expands hours to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. downtown and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in
neighborhoods, but private operators wouldn’t have the ability to
further expand hours.

How much City Council will be able to do remains
uncertain. City Solicitor John Curp previously told City Council that a
supermajority is not enough for a repeal because Mayor Mark Mallory, who
supports the parking plan, can hold any ordinances until Nov. 30, which
marks the end of the current City Council session.

Jason Barron, Mallory’s spokesperson, told CityBeat the mayor would reject a repeal, but he’s open to changes.

“There will be financial repercussions to that,” he said,
alluding to possibly smaller payments from the Port Authority. “But
there’s a ton of flexibility in this plan.”

Still, Barron says the city won’t spend any funds until there is legal certainty, meaning until potential appeals are exhausted.

At the center of the legal battles: Whether an emergency clause allows the parking plan to avoid a referendum.

Opponents gathered more than 12,000 signatures earlier in
the year for a referendum effort, but the referendum may never come to
pass in the aftermath of recent court rulings.

The latest ruling from the Hamilton County Court of
Appeals decided the city can use emergency clauses to avert referendum
efforts on passed legislation, on top of bypassing a 30-day waiting
period on implementing laws.

In other words, since the parking plan had an emergency clause attached to it, the plan is not subject to referendum.

The appeals court later refused to delay enforcement of
its ruling, which allowed the city manager to sign the lease within
days.

Opponents are attempting to appeal the ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court.

For Cincinnati, the parking plan will provide $92 million
in an upfront payment, followed by at least $3 million in estimated annual
payments that the city says will eventually grow to $7 million and
beyond.

The city plans to use the lump sum to rescind budget cuts, help balance future budgets and fund economic development projects, including the I-71/MLK Interchange.

Opponents of the plan argue it cedes too much control of
the city’s parking assets to private operators and could hurt neighborhoods and downtown by
expanding parking meter operation hours and increasing meter rates.

Correction: The city
signed the lease Monday, not Tuesday as originally reported in the story.
The city made the announcement Tuesday, which caused confusion and
miscommunication.

Ohioans support Medicaid, bill would ease gun rules, Smitherman steps down from NAACP

Got questions for CityBeat about anything related to Cincinnati? Submit your questions here and we’ll try to get back to you in our first Answers Issue.

CityBeat is looking to talk to convicted drug offenders
from Ohio for an upcoming cover story. If you’d like to participate or
know anyone willing to participate, email glopez@citybeat.com.

A new poll from the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati found a majority of Ohioans support expanding Medicaid coverage,
but state legislators have passed on a federally funded expansion in
their latest budget bills and other legislation. About 63 percent of 866
Ohioans asked between May 19 and June 2
supported the expansion, with a margin of error of 3.3 percent. The
question was part of the Ohio Health Issues Poll, which the University
of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research has conducted for the
Health Foundation each year since 2005.

An Ohio bill would ease restrictions on semi-automatic magazines,
making it so gun owners can more easily purchase high-round clips for
their semi-automatic weapons. Supporters of the bill say the change helps
differentiate between automatic and semi-automatic weapons — a
differentiation that doesn’t currently occur under state law. Critics
argue the bill makes it easier for offenders to carry out violent
shootings, such as the recent massacre in Sandy Hook
Elementary School.

Councilman Chris Smitherman is stepping down
as president of the local branch of the NAACP while he runs for
re-election. If he wins the election, Smitherman will then offer his resignation, which the NAACP's local executive committee can accept or reject. James Clingman, a vice president of the NAACP and founder
of the Greater Cincinnati African-American Chamber of Commerce, will
take Smitherman's spot for the time being. Before the move, Smitherman was criticized for engaging in
partisan political activity as he ran for re-election, which is
generally looked down upon by the NAACP and federal rules regarding
501(c)(3) organization like the federal branch of the NAACP.

The world’s most advanced solar plane touched down in Cincinnati Friday before continuing its record-breaking journey across the nation to Washington, D.C.

Council member could permanently resign if he wins re-election

Council member Chris Smitherman announced in a statement today that he will leave his post as president of the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP while he runs for re-election to City Council.

If he does win re-election, Smitherman will offer his permanent resignation to the local chapter's executive committee, which can then accept or reject Smitherman's leave.

James Clingman, a vice president of the NAACP and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African-American Chamber of Commerce, will take Smitherman's spot for now.

Smitherman, City Council's sole Independent, has come under criticism recently to step down from his NAACP post as he runs for office.

Others have also criticized Smitherman's involvement with political organizations like the conservative Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) and his support for Republican City Council candidates — involvement and support that critics argue are too political for the NAACP.

"Although NAACP units are 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations, the national NAACP is a 501(c)(3) organization which is restricted in how it can assist people in registering or getting out to vote. In addition, NAACP policy specifically prohibits units’ engagement in political campaign activity. This means that NAACP units cannot endorse or oppose candidates running for public office, make financial or in-kind contributions to candidates, political parties, or PACs, or engage in other activity that is designed or targeted to influence the outcome of any candidate election," the memo reads.

By separating himself from the NAACP, Smitherman can continue his political activities without violating federal and national NAACP rules.

Plan includes luxury apartment tower, garage

City Council unanimously approved a development deal today to
build a grocery store, luxury apartment tower and garage at Fourth and
Race streets downtown.

With council approval, construction could begin later this year, with developers hoping to finish the project in 2015.

The $80 million deal with Indianapolis-based development company
Flaherty and Collins was approved following City Manager Milton Dohoney’s
urging earlier today.

“If we wait any longer on the parking deal, we put this
deal at risk. With the housing capacity issue downtown and decade-long
cry for a grocery store, we must move forward,” Dohoney said in a
statement.

The city’s share of the project will cost $12 million. As part of the deal, the city will provide the money through a five-year forgivable loan financed by urban renewal funds, which are
generated through downtown taxes and can only be used for capital
projects downtown. The funds can’t be used for operating
budget expenses such as police and fire.

For more information on the project, read CityBeat’s original story on the Budget and Finance Committee hearing here.